Genes to REGROW Teeth?!

So I think by now everyone knows that humans just make two sets of teeth… first our baby (deciduous teeth) then our adult teeth which if we look after them correctly should last our lifetime.

Now some people unfortunately do lose their teeth early & for many reasons two of which are tooth neglect or accidental damage.

Losing your adult teeth early can be quite upsetting depending on the individual, some people feel that gaps are not seen as aesthetically pleasing but don’t worry all is not lost because that’s where we come in offering implants, bridges or dentures to help fill those gaps.

Lost teeth can also cause eating issues, I mean not a lot of people would like to live on just soup, we need those gnashers to chomp down on some hearty grub!!

But what if our adult teeth were not our final set of teeth,  what if we could grow more?

So now most people know that Sharks have the ability to regenerate their teeth and until now we were no closer in working out how this actually happened.

Scientific research conducted by Dr Gareth Fraser has given us an insight on how this happens, the research consisted of analysing the teeth of catshark embryos, which helped to identify the genes involved during stages of early shark tooth formation, the  cells are called the dental lamina, which are responsible for the lifelong continuation of tooth development and regeneration in sharks. The same genes are actually still present in us (humans) but why can we not regrow our teeth? I hear you ask, well at some point during the aging process (around adolescence) we lose those cells. But Dr Fraser thinks there is still a possibility we could re-invigorate the cells with dental treatments.

Dr Fraser said he believes that once ‘a set of tweaks’ is found, we will be able to regrow teeth ‘when and if we need them.’

So watch this space, one day we might be able to regrow our pearly whites!!

If you would like to read the full article regarding Shark tooth formation and the research conducted by Dr Fraser and his team please click here.